Spelman College
Atlanta, Georgia
January 30, 2008
It is a real privilege to be here and to honor Johnnetta Cole, who is a role model for so many of us. Her legacy of leadership lives on here at Spelman, which has a distinguished tradition of developing women leaders. I could be here all night talking about her many accomplishments and why she so inspires all of us, but that's not what I'm supposed to do.
Jane Smith, an extraordinary leader in her own right, asked me to speak about my perspective on leading, so I want to share with you a few thoughts on leadership, especially women's leadership, why it is so important in today's world and how these issues inform the work we do at CARE.
First, let me confess that I wasn't always a big fan of the concept of leadership. I had seen a lot of people in leadership roles who abused that power, who saw leadership as a chance to dominate, and who thought that having a leadership role entitled them to automatic respect and special privileges.
So, let me start by saying that holding a position of leadership – a high-powered title – doesn't make you a leader. More and more, people are talking about the concept of "authentic leadership." What does that mean? It means aligning your leadership with who you are as a person. So authentic leaders are able to demonstrate a passion for their mission, practice their values consistently, and lead with their hearts as well as their heads.
I was recently reading a study about leadership in the Harvard Business Review. They interviewed 125 leaders of all ages who were known for their effectiveness and found that, while there was a range of skills that characterized successful leaders, there was no universal right way to be a leader. They also asked a group of imminent business leaders what they thought was the most important capability for leaders to develop. They agreed there was no one way to be a leader, but did feel there was one important ingredient for leadership. Any guess on what that was? Not assertiveness, not decisiveness, not team-building.
The most important capability, they said, is self-awareness. Before asking others to follow, a leader must begin by knowing who she or he is. So what does that mean for all of us? It means getting in touch with who we are. And how do you do that? Well there is no one right way to do that either, but it can start by just asking yourself some simple questions. Which people had the greatest impact on your life? What are your values? What motivates you? What is your true passion?
Without having always been conscious of it, this has been key to developing my path and my own leadership style. My sense of passion and commitment has driven me and has been the most consistent factor in my career.
I have known for most of my life that what I wanted to do was contribute to bringing about positive social change and social justice. As I often say, I didn't set out to be a doctor. I grew up at a time when social change was in the air your breathed in this country. I grew up during the civil rights movement, the women's movement, anti-Vietnam War protest period, liberation struggles in Africa. I was a movement child. I saw the power of collective action causing change and grew up wanting to be part of something bigger than myself.
I also grew up in a family where giving back to the community – the "to whom much is given, much is expected" notion – was core to our family values. My family was a working middle class family, but we were all fortunate to get a good education and to excel in school.
My commitment to social justice led me to medical school and, ultimately, into public health. Becoming a doctor seemed like a concrete way to contribute to society and to use a focus on health status as a way of addressing inequities between the haves and the have-notes. I decided on a career in public health even though I trained in pediatrics because public health is that marriage between society and medicine. As a practicing doctor your patient in an individual. As a public health practitioner, your patient is the community, the nation and the world.
So I worked for over 20 years in public health, first at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, here in Atlanta, and then at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, working primarily on HIV/AIDS in the US and around the world. The more I worked on HIV, the more the relationship to poverty and inequity became clear. Those who are most disproportionally impacted by HIV/AIDS are generally those most impacted by stigma, discrimination, marginalization, and inequality. This is especially the case for women whose risk for HIV is often linked to low status, low negotiating power in sexual relationships and lack of economic options.
So when I was first asked to consider coming to CARE, the idea of leaving the medical field full time was a bit scary – it's what I knew and who I was. But in reality, ending poverty is the ultimate way to save lives and coming to CARE gave me a chance to focus in depth on the issues of inequity and social injustice that had led me to medicine and health to begin with.
So I am thrilled to be at CARE. And while I never really thought in terms of wanting to be a leader, I always knew that I wanted to be in a position to influence things I cared about.
But, like everyone who ends up in a leadership role, I have also been fortunate to have had people who believed in me and were willing to open doors for me just as I have to be willing to do if we are going to continue to grow new leaders.
Now, Lord knows, at this point in at this point in history, our world is desperately in need of good leaders – in all parts of the world and in all parts of society. And we need more of these leaders to be women.
Our world is changing in that regard. In countries around the world, women are assuming leadership positions and shifting the leadership landscape. Currently, 10 countries have female presidents or prime ministers – women like Michelle Bachelet of Chile or Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf of Liberia – Africa's first. These are women who are opening the doors for others to follow. Now, granted, 10 out of 192 countries may not seem like much, but it's a trend in the right direction and builds on a strong drive in the last two decades to promote women to positions of power.
Looking at national parliaments or legislative bodies like our Congress, a global survey in 2005 found that 16 percent of members were women. As a comparison, in 2000, that figure was 11 percent. Does anyone have a guess as to which country has the highest number of women in its parliament? You might be surprised. Rwanda, with 49 percent. Compare that with the U.S., with 16 percent of members of Congress being women. Thirty percent representation is considered the threshold at which women legislators gain a critical mass to have an impact.
Now, Rwanda's number is no accident. The current Rwandan constitution, adopted in 2003, states that 30 out of the 100 seats in parliament must be reserved for women.
Particularly in post-conflict situations and in efforts to build peaceful and productive societies, the United Nations has found it is critical that women be involved in policy making. I don't know if you can make a direct correlation, but it's interesting to note that Rwanda has the second-highest economic growth rate in Africa, with an annual 10 percent increase in GDP.
So, what does all this mean for our world? There have been many studies trying to get at whether and how female leaders are different than male leaders. I am pretty skeptical about stereotypes and generalizations, but I think there is truth in at least two fairly consistent findings:
First, women tend toward a consensus style of leadership – bringing people together and trying to work toward a shared vision. Generally speaking, women establish themselves as leaders by gaining followers' trust and confidence. We are more natural mentors and prone to seek to empower others around us. Research has found that this style is much more well-suited for leading a modern organization and for solving our current day problems than the more authoritarian style that is associated with male leadership.
These same approaches are often used by the male leaders who are considered the most successful. A New York Times profile of Duke basketball coach Mike Krzyzewski posed the question: What is the secret to Krzyzewski's success? The reporter stated, for starters, he coaches the way a woman would. By that he was referring to his mentoring, his focus on players' feelings and concerns, and on building a team that focuses on interpersonal dynamics as well as technique.
Second, women bring a different perspective to issues, and bring different issues to the table. So women approach issues like peace building and traditional notions of power and structure differently and help to add balance to problem solving. As one journalist summed it up: "women in government are associated with lots of good things."
Or, as my friend and mentor Dr. David Satcher said in an recent article in which he was asked about CARE's focus on women, "At a time when men are often being destructive with each other, their families and the environment, it's time to unleash the power of women."
Further corroborating this notion, a recent World Bank analysis determined that the greater the representation of women in parliament, the lower the level of corruption.
Yet, despite the advantages of women serving in leadership roles, they face formidable obstacles. India offers an interesting example. A 1992 amendment to their constitution reserved a third of all local council seats for women. In 2004, researchers from the Poverty Action Lab at MIT conducted surveys to determine the impact of the increased representation.
They found that villages headed by women invested more in services that benefited the entire community – such as schools, roads and water pumps – and that the quality of those services was higher than in villages headed by men. And, the politicians were less corrupt – villagers with female-headed councils were 25 percent less likely to report having to pay bribes to access basic services.
But here's the kicker: voters there were less satisfied with the performance of the female politicians than that of the men. In opinion polls, the women got lower approval ratings. Researchers concluded "there is a significant cultural barrier to recognizing women as competent policy makers … even when women do a good job, biased perception means that these are not recognized by the electorate."
That is very sobering data. And, unfortunately, consistent with what we see in our own country. Men continue to receive higher wages and faster promotions. There is a measurable resistance to women as leaders, regardless of the field. And this resistance comes from both men and women.
To borrow a concept from a recent book: the problem isn't a glass ceiling, it's the sum of the many obstacles along the way. A better metaphor is that women are navigating a labyrinth, full of twists and turns.Passage through it requires persistence, awareness and a careful analysis of the puzzles ahead.
So, should that discourage any of in us this room? I hope not! I think we can all take inspiration from women who have walked this path before, like Johnnetta Cole. Women like her offer all of us examples of what is possible. We just have to stay the course.
I said earlier that you find leaders in all places, at all levels of society. I never could have imagined over 30 years ago, as a young woman training to be a doctor, what I would learn about leadership from some of the poorest women in the world. In order for you to appreciate how extraordinary they are, let me put CARE's work in context.
More than half the people on this planet live on less than $2 a day. Of them, seventy percent are women and girls. Consider these facts:
- Nearly two-thirds of children out of school are girls.
- One woman dies every minute of every day during pregnancy or in childbirth
- Women work two-thirds of working hours, but earn only 10 percent of the world's income.
No matter how you measure it, women and girls bear the brunt of poverty. They are also our greatest hope for eradicating it. Improving women's lives can be the crucial first step toward creating lasting social change in poor countries.
Here are just a few examples why:
- Each extra year of primary education that a girl receives boosts her wages later in life by 10 to 20 percent.
- Children of mothers who attended at least five years of school are 40 percent more likely to survive past their fifth birthday.
- A study in Kenya found that crop yields could rise by more than 20 percent if female farmers had the same education and decision-making authority as men.
The examples go on and on. This is why CARE places a great emphasis on investing in girls and women. Educating girls, providing quality health care for pregnant woman and new mothers, helping women gain access to financial resources – all of these efforts lift entire communities.
Let me share an example of what I mean. Johnnetta Cole's great-grandfather on her maternal side was a man named A. L. Lewis. A. L. Lewis was an entrepreneur in Jacksonville, Florida, who helped found the state's first insurance company in 1901. His business was extremely successful. So successful that he became the state's first black millionaire.
In an interview, Dr. Cole noted that her grandfather's business was modeled on an old African system whereby group members contribute a little bit of money each week to a collective pool, from which they can borrow money.
This story caught my attention because CARE uses this very same model. In Niger, in 1991, we developed a program drawing from the same tradition that her great-grandfather did. We and other agencies have replicated this approach and CARE operates such programs in more than 21 countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America. Most of our groups work with women, people too poor to be customers for commercial banks.
Women pool together what amounts to pennies to be able to save collectively and provide members of these savings groups small loans to start small businesses – making clothes, raising chickens to sell eggs, start small gardens and selling crops. And in these savings and loan groups, their repayment rates are nearly 100 percent.
As just one example, in India, nearly 600,000 women have participated in these programs. They have collectively saved $22 million and secured loans of roughly $51 million. That is an extraordinary amount of money considering their starting point.
With this money, the women do all kinds of things. They send their children to school and buy school supplies. They pay for medical care and medicine for their families. They invest in their businesses. They create health and insurance systems, just like A.L. Lewis did.
These are the tangible benefits. But it's the intangible results that speak to the power of money. Women tell us their husbands have new respect for them because they are contributing to the family's income. They take on decision-making roles and start to assert themselves. They gain an esprit de corps from being in the group. And they start organizing themselves to vote and take part in other civic actions. So the benefits go well beyond the cash transactions and are far-reaching.
I met a group of about 30 women in Kabul, Afghanistan, who participate in one of our savings groups. This is the least place you might think I'd find an active women's liberation movement going on, but in its own way that's what was happening. These women left their burqas on a clothesline outside the house for their meeting and they talked among themselves about their increasing financial freedom.
One woman said: "It was a good opportunity to get out and to have access to resources to help our families. We wanted to meet together to have information and to know our rights. We didn't have access to education. We are illiterate people, and we would like to come here to learn something, to save our money together and use our resources to solve our problems."
I asked if the women thought their increasing independence would cause tension in their families. Everyone shouted "NO!" One woman responded: "We are contributing to our families, helping our husbands and paying for things around the house. These are very positive changes. It helps our husbands see us differently. It helps them see us with respect."
Consider the ripple effects of this. Descendants of an A.L. Lewis go on to be college presidents. Imagine what descendants of women in a savings and loan group will do. They will have opportunities their mothers and grandmothers never did. They will have the potential to be leaders and to do great things for their communities and their countries.
I'd like to close by telling you about a few more leaders. Women who have taught me the true meaning of the word. Women who make me very optimistic about the future of our world.
I have learned about leadership from women like Betty, an Ecuadorian descended from African slaves, who just like in this country, is subject to discrimination and exclusion on the basis of both her race and her gender. Betty is a group leader in a program in which women are trained to make and sell crafts drawn from their African tradition and are taught business skills.
She told me: "We grew up believing that our role was to stand behind men and make them successful. This program taught us that we as women can stand behind other women, and support each other so we are successful."
I learned from Safaa, a woman from Darfur, Sudan, where as you know, hundreds of thousands of people have been killed in brutal attacks and millions have been forced to flee their homes. Safaa believes that women are the key to ending that conflict. She said: "Men think of themselves as belonging to different tribes. That's what starts these conflicts. We women see ourselves as members of one tribe. We are all women."
I learned from women like Maria in Peru. In 1994, she and her sister took a skills training course and learned to weld. They later received a loan through CARE to help develop their welding business. It is now one of the most successful in the country.
In the aftermath of last year's August earthquake, her company manufactured 1,000 tents for survivors. Maria told me: "If you give education to women, you give them liberty. You transmit the power to them. A woman can leave her prison. People only need a push for their dreams, and this knowledge can change their life."
These are some of the women leaders that I have had the privilege to work with and learn from along the way. They give me inspiration and hope for our collective future. To me, these women speak volumes about the power of investing in women and women's leadership. And it is why I am so proud to have been asked to be a part of this series.
Here at Spelman, you are fortunate to have many wonderful teachers, many wonderful leaders. So, what are you learning? What lessons will you take away as you go on to assume your place, your role as a leader in our world?
I hope you will remember what I said about self-awareness. Take time to know who you are. Find your passion. Develop your skills. Travel, but also practice being a leader right here, right now, every day. Leaders aren't born. They are made. You have a fantastic opportunity at this very moment to make yourself into a leader and, by so doing, to change our world. I wish you all great success.
